


First Heartbreak

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Foxtrot [4]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, The Dollhouse - Fandom
Genre: Dollhouse-level non-con, F/M, not actually RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 07:11:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6228751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: Any, Any, first heartbreak. Set during SGA Season 1.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Heartbreak

John Sheppard had never been in love. Never. Nancy was Foxtrot's handler; she hadn't outright hated him the way some long-term engagement handlers did, but she certainly hadn't loved him, and his love for her was manufactured in the imprint chair so she could control him. That wasn't love. It was brainwashing.  
  
Some of the other people inside of him had been in love, but they weren't him. (Joe had never been in love. He'd never had the chance.) So when John first woke up to who and what he really was (he was all of them, he was something bigger than all of them combined, he was John and Joe at the roots, he was this composite thing inside Foxtrot but Foxtrot wasn't a name, wasn't really a person either, and he liked John best, because John had tried, in his own fumbling way, to protect him), he decided to give himself a chance. To fall in love.  
  
Rodney repeatedly accused him of being Captain Kirk, but it wasn't like that. He wouldn't compromise his command of Atlantis by becoming so stupidly in love that he abandoned his duties, but he wanted the chance to fall in love. And maybe a girl from the Pegasus Galaxy would be easier to have a relationship with than one from Earth, a girl who wouldn't see his hang-ups for what they really were (being screwed over by high-level neuroscience and a kid with an abandonment complex).  
  
When he told Chaya he was nervous because he was in his first romantic situation with an alien woman, he was lying. He was in his first romantic situation with a woman ever. Knowledge buzzed at the back of his head, the worst peanut gallery ever, all of the personalities weighing in to tell him what to bring on the picnic, what to say, how to act. John pleaded, and Atlantis shut them down, suppressed them to a low murmur in the back of his head. (He heard Joe tell them to shut the hell up so he could enjoy his ambassadorial-diplomatic picnic. One of the others snorted in derision and said it was a date.)  
  
And when he finally kissed her - his world went blissfully, sweetly silent. It was just John and just Chaya, warm lips and the scent of her hair and the wine they'd shared.  
  
When he pulled away, there was a pleased, gentle humming in the back of his mind. Atlantis liked her. Atlantis adored her. She would be a worthy Imperatrix, she was one of –  
  
Atlantis went silent as well, and John didn't follow her train of thought. He just leaned in to kiss Chaya again.

When he found out she was an Ancient, an ascended Ancient even, he didn't care. He had to find her, had to talk to her. They could work something out. He could come visit. Her planet was practically a paradise anyway, and when he took leave, there was no reason for him to go home. He had no friends and family there; all his friends and family were on Atlantis. She was an Ancient. She knew everything in the universe. She would understand who and what she was, and she wouldn't care.  
  
But she couldn't stay for him. She was punished, cursed by what she was, by being more than human. So she said goodbye.  
  
When she offered to share herself with him, he said yes without thinking of the consequences. He closed his eyes and felt her mind brush against his, gentle. He was elated. He was in love with her, and he would get to know everything about her.  
  
"This is so cool," he said.  
  
And then it all went wrong.  
  
One moment he was reveling in her warmth, her lightness, and then she yanked back, and the cold left in her place was like a slap to the face.  
  
"What is this?" Chaya's voice was shaking. "What are you?"  
  
John opened his eyes. "What? What's wrong?"  
  
The other personalities came roaring back, buzzing, angry, circling, crying to be let out, to fight for him, to die for him, to defend him. Atlantis wasn't there to push them pack.  
  
Chaya backed away a step. "I saw. Inside your head. You're not –"  
  
John's voice was like ground glass in his throat. "Not human?"  
  
"More than human. Too human. Too many humans. How did you do this? Why would you do this?" She started to reach for him.  
  
He batted her hand away reflexively. Hurt blossomed over the fear in her eyes, and John wanted to say he was sorry, but then he wasn't himself, couldn't say anything.  
  
"I didn't do this to me," Joe said quietly, "and I wouldn't have, if I'd had the choice, if I'd really known."  
  
Chaya's eyes narrowed. "You are not John."  
  
"No," Joe said, "not all of John, just part of him."  
  
Inside, John screamed to be let out, to be allowed to speak to Chaya one last time, to at least say goodbye, but Joe turned him around and marched him back to the puddle-jumper. After all, it was Joe's ATA gene, not John Sheppard's, that let them fly the thing.  
  
When he got back to Atlantis, John would make sure she helped him keep the voices quiet once and for all.


End file.
